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Saturday, June 2, 2012

Coffee BeansMario Kart Wii was released on April 27, 2008 in the U.S. with a MSRP of $49.99, and it was bundled with the Wii Wheel accessory. The game was developed by Nintendo's EAD studio, and of course published by Nintendo.Mario Kart Wii received an ESRB rating of "Everyone" with "Comic Mischief" listed as content for gamers and parents to be aware of.

Just how many hours have U.S. Wii owners reported battling with blue turtle shells in Mario Kart Wii over the last 4 years, and where does it stand in the Mario Kart rankings? Let's take a look!

The BrewMario Kart Wii has approximately 2,596,404 U.S. Wii owners that have game-play hours reported, and the game's average play-time per day/session is 1 Hour 31 Minutes.

The game has a "professional" review score average of 82.02% based on 72 reviews on GameRankings.com. How does Mario Kart Wii rank to the other Mario Kart games according to the "professional" review score averages? Take a look at the image below:

Recorded 6-1-2012

Mario Kart Wii has a customer review score average of 92.36% based on 1,126 customer reviews from Amazon.com. How does it rank compared to the customer review score averages for the other Mario Kart games on Amazon.com? Take a look at the image below:

Recorded 6-1-2012

Caffeinated Thoughts
I know, some of you may be thinking, "Coffee, what do you mean 'its hours destroy like a blue turtle shell?'". Well, how do blue turtle shells destroy? If you have played Mario Kart Wii, you are probably very familiar with how often blue turtle shells make their appearances to frequently destroy you when in 1st during a race.

With Mario Kart Wii having over 100 million hours of game-play reported by over 2 million U.S. Wii owners, I think it shows the game is still being played quite frequently by U.S. Wii owners, even 4 years after it released.

Mrs. Coffee and I have Mario Kart Wii in our game collection, as of December 2010. Yet, neither one of us has finished the single-player mode, and I think we have only played online once. For whatever reason, Mario Kart Wii just hasn't gotten much play-time in the Coffee House! As for my experience with the blue turtle shells, early this morning I was racing and was hit by three blue turtle shells in one race, which seems to be the average I have experienced in the 50cc races.

If you have not seen any footage of Mario Kart Wii, here's the intro video from the game's main menu:

I think it is interesting that the "professional" review score average for Mario Kart Wii has it ranked as the lowest of all the Mario Kart games, while the customer review score average for it places it in 2nd behind Mario Kart DS, but ahead of every other home console version.

The Mario Kart games have an interesting release history, with the N64 to GameCube release being basically 7 years, while the handheld game releases have been spaced apart about 5 years. If we use a 5 year release average, the next home console Mario Kart game should be releasing on the Wii U (assuming one Mario Kart game per console), and would make 2013 the year for release. Will Mario Kart Wii U appear at E3 this year? If not, possibly at E3 2013 and release for the holidays next year? I guess we will find out about this year's E3 appearance (or not) in just a few more days!

QuestionsDo any of you own and perhaps still play Mario Kart Wii on a regular basis? If you have played several of the Mario Kart games, including Mario Kart Wii at length, where would you rank it compared to the others?Also, if you play online, and are looking for other Wii owners to play with online, feel free to add your friend code in the comment section below. I'll be adding our Mario Kart Wii friend code below as well, and feel free to add our code to your list.

If any of you are interested in Mario Kart Wii, you can find it on Amazon.com and GameStop.com linked below:

21 comments:

SMK Wii is the best! Hrm, maybe not, there have been some articles lately that suggest otherwise..

I've probably logged 20+ into this game and it's tied with Mario Kart 7 for me. I like the controls, bikes and some of the maps. Though as always I think the items are way out of control (spam) and/or it needs more options for controlling what can be used per race. Still a pretty awesome party game with 4-player split-screen though.

Looking forward to comparing it to Super Mario Kart and MK64 at some point.

I am a MK fan and MKWii is my 2d favorite behind the Gamecube version. I have played mkwii for 3 years in a row, even whit new games in my collection, this one was always in the top.

I honestly stoped giving a damn about those so-called "professional" reviewers who are nothing but overpaid elitist nerds. MKWii is an excelent arcade game that can be enjoyed alone, online or with friends.

The only issue I have is with the online part. Nowadays is getting harder and harder to find a room without hacked players using absurd mod cheats.

316.862 Canadian Wii owners have reported results or 12.2% of the US total. This remains consistent with other major Nintendo titles showing Canada tracking much higher than the 9-10% expected given the population size of the two countries.

This one still gets fired up when some of our friends come over, and somethings my kids fire it up for local as well as online play. I remember reviewing it awhile back and I really enjoyed it. It's not the best in series in my opinion, but it's still fun.

I can definitely see where Matt is coming from that this particular release was turned into more of a party game than a racer, but to me the series has always been something of a party game. The newer versions with unlockables make it a bit more entertaining for me in terms of solo play, but really from the SNES version, Gamecube and ESPECIALLY the N64 versions - they were always played with groups of friends or family so to me these games have always felt more like party games I guess.

"Still a pretty awesome party game with 4-player split-screen though."We haven't even touched local 4-player, and our neighbors I believe are/were big fans of MKW...so there must be something about this game keeping us away...

That being said, since I started it the other day, our oldest Bean has figured out how to hold the Wii Remote steady and select menu options now, and he saw Mario Kart Wii and fired up the game.All he gets done is driving in circles/backwards, but he seems to enjoy just doing that for about 20-30 minutes at a time.

I'll add your friend code to my main Wii system later tonight hopefully (if I haven't already), and get my Mario Kart Wii friend code at some point and add it to my list...didn't realize until this post I had never added the MKW friend code to my list.

The GameCube version, Double Dash, is pretty high up on my list, and we don't even own it. Just great memories from when I rented it.

As for, "I honestly stopped giving a **** about those so-called "professional" reviewers who are nothing but overpaid elitist nerds."I think the overpaid part is probably wrong, though considering some of them do get paid for what they do...perhaps the "overpaid" part is not incorrect. :)

"Yeah, Mario Kart Wii was a downer for me - far too focused on the items."Did you play ExciteBots? I enjoyed that game, A LOT...it was focused on? RACING! Concentrate on the tracks, hitting the red bars right, very few items to worry with.

And thanks for that! I see a review! And no prescription drugs at the end of that link (this time!) But Yeah, Mario Kart 64 was just one my buddies and I played the heck out of in college (along w/ Madden and Golden Eye)

No all that stuff and most of the game seemed awesome. It was the minigame stuff, especially poker, that I didn't like the idea of. I got busy or distracted with other things and never got back to it, so I'm not sure how much real effect it has on the game.

Yeah... I only ever played that one once. It made my brain hurt a little as I recall. That said, I can't give a real thorough, honest opinion of the title, and my reaction is more based on the rather um... questionable reputation the game has garnered over the years.

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